abby

May 20, 2008

Food can really have an effect on you. Memories and food get seared together in our brains, both the good and the bad. Flavors can bring you places you've never been and places you'd like to go back to.

Abby here, the little one formerly known as Polka Dot, is having her first taste of asparagus. Not only that, but also her first tastes of balsamic vinegar AND Parmigiano-Reggiano. Whoa. She loved it. But she won't remember it, and not the next time either, but the time after that...

We won't forget the first time Molly ate more than a couple bites of it. She was older, and polished off a plate of it. Later that night when she went to bathroom we thought there was a serious problem... Burning eggs, sulfur, overwhelming fumes from the pee of a 2 year old. A weapon of mass destruction.

Tina hit Google looking for 'foul smelling urine" or something like that and stumbled across a page about asparagus. Bizarre. Who knew? Scientists apparently. I absolutely love the fact that there was a research paper in a 1975 issue of Science titled, "Occurrence of S-methyl thioesters in urines of humans after they have eaten asparagus." Urines of humans? Anyway, apparently everyone's body does the same little dance when it comes to digesting the green stalks, but only certain people can smell the byproducts. I don't know whether we should be thankful for our S-methyl thioester receptors or not...

What else does food do to you?

Does anybody share this problem with me: When I eat eggplant, the skin falls off the roof my mouth. Seriously. It doesn't happen every time, and I can't figure out when it does and doesn't't happen, whether it's related to the cooking style, or something else I'm eating with it. I just thought I was weird until a couple other folks I know mentioned the same problem. The skin literally starts peeling off. It's unpleasant, but not frequent enough to keep me away.

Two simple recipes for when you want to torture yourself, or the ones that will use the bathroom after you:

1) Toss asparagus in some olive oil and salt. If it's nice out, and you've already got the grill going, put them on there and keep turning them until they are tender and a little crispy. If the grill is not a good option, put them on a sheet pan on some foil, and do the same operation under the broiler.

The last time we had them, we had big stalks and I got lazy and didn't feel like peeling them. In an unfortunate bit of positive reinforcement, I was rewarded. I ended up completely charring a few stalks - it turns out the skin peels right off, like a roasted pepper, leaving the soft creamy interior. The texture wasn't great for eating them straight, but chopped up in rice was excellent.

2) Toss some thin eggplant slices in oil and salt (hmm...a pattern here). Grill them on both sides until soft. Put something in the middle and roll them up. Pictured above, it was feta, tomatoes, basil and oil. Great, quick appetizer. Next time I might peel some of the skin - note the eerily straight edge in the lower left of the photo.

So I ask again, what does food do to you? Emotional, physical or otherwise...leave a comment if you've got something good to share...

May 18, 2008

So this past weekend Tina was out of town catching up with her best friend, who unfortunately lives in Binghampton. It was the first time it's been Molly and Abby and I for an entire day and overnight. We had a lot of fun.

We were busy.

We went to the farmer's market. It rained. We got asparagus, chives, honey, and lettuce. We got soaked on the way home.

Abby ate 2 strawberries.

Molly and I made some scallion pancakes. We didn't have scallions or regular flour. So we actually made white whole wheat flour chive pancakes. They were still really good.

While chopping chives, I lost Tina's favorite knife behind the slide-in range.

I lost my wedding ring in the yard. During an epic battle with a slug that had attached itself to my hand, I managed to fling it (my ring, not the slug) across the driveway into the dirt and rocks along side it.

May 01, 2008

If you don't see it, try this - imagine that for months all your meals consisted of was liquid and mashed fruits and vegetables with no seasonings at all. Yuck.

I've said it before, but what would it be like to be able to remember your first bite of chicken or watermelon, or crunchy cheerio? Abby is finally old enough to eat some of what we're eating, and it's really an awesome thing. Not only is it easier, quicker and just plain cool to be able to give her some of what we're having, but she gets so excited to have something that's not pureed to a pulp. Keep in mind, no teeth yet*, so the stuff has to be pretty much mashable, but it's neat to see her scooting around the kitchen in her walky-thing grabbing soggy cherrios and chomping them up.

Also, on the homefront, we finally got a new range. Also very exciting. High tech convection oven? Nope. Crazy powerful jet-engine 30,000 BTU burner? Nope. Fancy knobs? Nope. Actually, we're just excited that it starts when we ask it to and doesn't threaten to bring down our house. The previous tenant (inherited from the previous owners) had a proclivity towards laziness and risky behavior. Such as:

1) It required an additional flame (supplied by the operator) to start the burners.2) When we moved in, the oven light was out. I replaced it, turned it on, and it promptly exploded.3) The oven would take somwhere between several and 20 minutes to start. When it finally decided to go, you would hear a nice big WHOMP from inside, as the gas ignited and the oven did its best impression of an FAE.

I had a post planned for a noodle salad thing with peanut dressing planned (yes, I realize that peanut dressing is a bit played at this point**, but that doesn't make it not good) - soba noodles, shredded lettuce and other veggies, slivered chicken and the peanut/soy dressing. First, I forgot to take a picture. Second, Molly didn't like it and my enthusiasm took a big hit. Finally, another Andrew, a food writer for the Buffalo News, had a very similar recipe in Sunday's paper. Oh well...maybe some other time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------* The first sign of a tooth breaking through appeared this very morning!** Can you get it at Applebee's? Probably...

March 25, 2008

Abigail is 7 months old and we really can't wait to be able to give her real food. Not to say her applesauce, pearsauce, carrotsauce, squashsauce, bananasauce and spinachsauce aren't real, but you need to see it: If you're holding her and attempt to eat something, say a forkful of pasta or a spoon of ice cream, Abby's mouth opens up and she launches her entire body in the direction of the food. She's a shark propelling herself at some helpless prey. And if it's possible for a 7 month old to look offended, man, she looks it when that bite lands in your mouth and not hers.

She gets little bits of whole bananas and sweet potatoes and pasta and bread when we're eating them, and absolutely loves it. Imagine getting to taste everything for the first time! It would be great to have those memories of what you were thinking the first time you bit into a slice of watermelon or a crispy piece of roast chicken skin.

We were very lucky with Molly...once she started eating off our plates, we let her try just about everything and she kept asking for more. For the most part she still does. I think when she rejects certain things now, it's more out of her four (she'd say four and a half) year old sense of purpose and not really an aversion to what's on the table. She's also become something of an unintentional wise-ass as she screams "LOOKS GROSS!" when you first put her plate down and then proceeds to polish it off. She requests things like "goats cheese" and "the peach beer" (uh...she might have accidentally had a sip of a Belgian lambic at some point). We can only hope Abby is the same, so the two of them can sit at the table together, belching, laughing and fighting for the last scoop of hummus.

On the other side of the world our adorable almost-year-old niece Anya is learning to eat in a totally different environment. We haven't met her yet, as she was spirited off to Beijing with her parents, but apparently she won't eat her vegetables unless they are stir fried with soy sauce.

She's going to be an awesome dinner companion in a couple years.

Overall, some common sense prevails - if you keep feeding kids PB&J, plain chicken breasts and American cheese (does that stuff ever grow mold?) because you think that's all that they'll like...guess what happens? Don't get me wrong, we're not claiming to be experts on nutrition for picky toddlers, but I've seen both sides and the effects are pretty obvious. If you're enjoying your food, they are going to enjoy your food also.